The Irish Mail on Sunday

50 but Frozen in time

Remarkably, this year Jennifer Aniston, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger ALL hit the big Five -- 0. So how have they pulled off looking...

- From Caroline Graham

THEY were born in 1969, the year man first walked on the moon. Now some of Hollywood’s biggest female stars are set to celebrate a historic milestone of their own – turning 50. Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger and Jennifer Lopez will take a giant leap for womankind this year as they reach their half-century looking as toned and sexy as women decades younger.

Aniston will be first to hit the milestone later this month. The Mail on Sunday has learned she will celebrate in style with a ‘Fabulous At 50’ party for which all her friends have been asked to record a message that will be unveiled during a This Is Your Life-style tribute.

But before she indulges in her favourite margaritas, Aniston will start her day with her latest passion – an hour in the boxing ring, sparring with her (much younger) male trainer.

‘Jen is someone who is always looking to step it up and boxing is her newest craze,’ says a source. ‘She’s always mixing it up but she never stops working at making herself better on the outside and the inside. She says she feels more confident in her body than when she was in her 20s.’

Hollywood stylist Phillip Bloch, 58, has worked with many of the women on these pages and says their secret is two-fold: ‘They have all the benefits of modern technology at their fingertips. There have been huge steps in anti-ageing potions, lotions, injections, diets and workouts. It takes a team of stylists, nutritioni­sts, beautician­s and trainers to look this good.

‘But that takes nothing away from these women. They’ve worked their butts off to stay youthful and they deserve the credit. For our parents’ generation, 50 was over the hill. You were supposed to let yourself go, put on your slippers and become invisible. But now 50 really is the new 30.’

JENNIFER LOPEZ Starts every day chanting: ‘I’m youthful and timeless’

JENNIFER Lopez has just finished a ten-day, nosugar, no-carbs challenge which she shared enthusiast­ically with her millions of fans on social media, along with jaw-dropping selfies of her rockhard abs and flawless skin.

The singer credits her Latin genes for her lack of wrinkles but she also sticks to a rigorous diet of no alcohol or coffee, and downs at least three litres of water a day. She avoids the sun too, preferring to use fake tan, and slathers on Dr Hauschka Rose Day Cream (€29.70) and Sjal’s Saphir Concentrat­e, a €174 ‘liquid silk’ facial oil enhanced with Himalayan blue sapphires and aquamarine­s which, the manufactur­er promises, offers ‘a sublime energy, scent and texture’.

Lopez starts each day chanting an affirmativ­e mantra while looking at herself in a full-length mirror as she repeats: ‘I am youthful and timeless.’ ‘I tell myself that every day, a few times a day,’ she says. ‘It sounds like clichéd bull **** , but it’s not. Age is all in your mind. Look at Jane Fonda.’ (A jaw-dropping 81.)

Stylist Bloch, who has worked with the singer and actress for the past three decades, says: ‘Jennifer surrounds herself with young people. She knows the latest music, is ahead of the fashion curve, and reads up on the latest health and fitness trends. She works harder than anyone in the room to know exactly what is going on.

‘She never thinks of herself in terms of a number or age. When you see her on stage, she’s dancing alongside twentysome­things and holding her own easily.’

Lopez went grey in her 20s, so she pops into celebrity hair colourist Rita Hazan’s New York salon at least once a month. If work takes her on the road, her colourist will fly to her wherever she is.

Her style has developed over time. While she was once known for her penchant for velour tracksuits, her favourite designers are now Gucci and Lanvin. She loves Hervé Leger’s trademark skin-tight bandage dresses.

The star keeps her famous gravity-defying bottom in shape by working out at least four times a week, often with boyfriend, former baseball player Alex Rodriguez, who is seven years her junior. The pair claim to have several personal trainers for sessions in kickboxing, pilates, yoga and gym sessions.

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES €34 face cream and a €3.41 lip liner

WELSH-BORN Catherine ZetaJones was a bare-faced ingenue when she first hit TV screens in the ITV’s Darling Buds Of May in 1991. But since marrying Michael Douglas and winning an Oscar for Chicago, she has become firmly A-list with a beauty regime and €57,000 walk-in wardrobe to prove it. Zeta-Jones has denied having any plastic surgery and swears the secret to her eternal youth lies in budget beauty products, including Moroccan argan oil, which she slathers on her face and hair before she goes to bed.

She uses Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream €34 and sticks to a no-alcohol, low-carb diet ‘which keeps my body free of inflammati­on inside and out’. Her favourite lip liner is by Rimmel (in Tiramisu) and costs just €3.40.

She started out on the West End stage and still incorporat­es regular tap-dancing lessons into her daily workouts at her home gym.

Her tastes in clothes and bags are less modest. Last December, she gave her Instagram fans a ‘live’ tour through her sprawling blacklacqu­ered walk-in wardrobe, which showed a weakness for Chanel bags, Hermés scarves and Christian Louboutin stilettos.

JENNIFER ANISTON Greek genes... and €456 laser treatments

SHE has been a tabloid staple thanks to her turbulent marriages to Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux but one thing that has never changed is Jennifer Aniston’s girl-next-door good looks.

She credits her lack of wrinkles to her ‘Greek genes’ but her complexion is no doubt helped by monthly €450 Clear And Brilliant laser treatments, which use pulsating beams of light to remove layers of skin.

Not every part of her regime is costly however: she recently listed her top beauty tips as ‘water, sleep and sunscreen’ and says she washes her face every morning with a budget-friendly €2.60 Neutrogena Face Cleansing Bar.

Although she created a cult following among women with ‘The Rachel’ haircut in Friends, these days Aniston keeps her longer waves in immaculate shape with trims every six weeks by long-time LA hairdresse­r Chris McMillan (who invented The Rachel). He also touches up her baby blonde highlights once a month.

Aniston has spoken about using a Unite 7 Seconds Detangler (€17.60), which she spritzes on her hair before leaving it to dry naturally.

She has one of the most enviable bodies on the planet and looks the same in a bikini as she did a decade ago.

She credits her physique to yoga as well as a diet of lean protein with plenty of fruits and vegetables. She claims to snack on frozen grapes and, for a treat, likes Mexican food washed down with margaritas.

‘I eat well and I work out, but I also indulge when I want to.’

She recently discovered boxing, working out with Leyon Azubuike, founder of LA studio Gloveworx.

RENÉE ZELLWEGER A six-year break at her 40-acre farm

AS BRIDGET Jones, the chainsmoki­ng, chardonnay-swilling singleton she brought to life on the big screen, Renée Zellweger bemoaned ‘smug marrieds’ and her ‘wobbly bits’. But as she approaches her half-century, the Oscar-winner has been repeatedly forced to deny she has gone under the surgeon’s knife to maintain her looks.

In an open letter, she said: ‘I did not make a decision to alter my face and have surgery on my eyes. The fact is of no true import to anyone but… that it became a public conversati­on is disconcert­ing.’ She added: ‘Perhaps I look different. Who doesn’t as they get older?’

Zellweger blamed her changing looks on her ‘hectic schedule’, saying she lost weight rapidly and experience­d puffy skin because she made ‘bad choices’ that ‘didn’t allow for taking care of myself’. It can’t have helped that she had to gain weight for the three Bridget Jones films. An avid runner, she now maintains her trim figure with a mostly vegetarian diet. She took a six-year break from Hollywood and retreated to her 40-acre farm in Connecticu­t and a beach house in the Hamptons before returning for the final Bridget Jones instalment in 2016. But as soon as she finished promoting that film, she vanished into the shadows once more. She has not been photograph­ed on a red carpet for more than a year, something Hollywood insiders say is intentiona­l.

One told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Renée is in a good place in life but she finds the endless scrutiny over her looks, her weight, everything, just exhausting.’

In a rare interview to promote the last Bridget film, she said: ‘I’ve never seen the maturation of a woman as a negative thing. I’ve never seen a woman stepping into her more powerful self as negative.’

CATE BLANCHETT Stem cells from Korean babies

AUSTRALIAN Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett is a timeless beauty.

But when it comes to keeping her porcelain skin in tip-top condition, she has a rather unusual secret – she once had a ‘fore facial’ using stem cells taken from Korean newborns.

Cate told how she and Sandra Bullock, 54, her Oceans 8 co-star, both tried the facial – called the Hollywood Epidermal Growth Factor – last year with skincare guru Georgia Louise.

It uses a serum – derived from cells taken from the ‘freshly removed foreskin of newborn babies in Korea’ according to the facialist’s website – and is said to help ‘build collagen and elastin and make skin appear younger and glowing’.

Blanchett – currently raising eyebrows in the risque ‘sexploitat­ion’ play When We Have Sufficient­ly Tortured Each Other in London’s West End – has described herself as ‘avidly’ anti-plastic surgery.

She puts her complexion down to her mother keeping her out of the sun and says: ‘In the end, if you have all that stuff [surgery] done you just see the work.’

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